MJ Nicholls's Reviews > The Goldfinch

“Pithy and irrelevant quote from philosopher to make this review sound important.” — Bobby McFerrin

Long out-of-context passage from the novel in italics unrelated to the stuff I am about to discuss in the review that sort of hangs there seeking an explanation and that also sounds somewhat profound and rubs off some cred on me for picking out such a seemingly perfect and deep-sounding line to whet your appetite even though you have probably skimmed the whole thing because you fail to see the relevance. (p679)

Big hyperbolic opening. I have been to the Himalayas, Easter Island, Neptune, and Dundee, and never have I encountered words on the page that have rocked me to the core of my deep deep soul as this. I have kissed Cardinal Ratzinger’s mitre, Warren Zevon’s left pinkie, and Liam Neeson’s elbows, had five marriages and nine divorces, but nothing in my whole entire life compares to when I sat down and read this big-because-the-font-is-huge doorstop that everyone else loves and W.H. Smith agrees is a masterpiece.

Now for the strange, shrink-ready “personal” response. Emotions can be emotional. We can gaze into our souls and find dark things there, like old bananas or burnt toast. Sometimes overcoming struggle can be a struggle and we need the love of loved ones to help us overcome the emotional struggles with our loved ones. Out hearts beat like metronomes alongside the hearts of everyone else on the planet’s hearts, which beat similarly, unless they have stopped. Those people are dead. Our families can be terrible and drive us to do crazy things, like burn down the house and run off with a My Chemical Romance groupie who leaves us penniless in the pub toilets after taking our virginity. It is reassuring to know that there are always people there for us, if we have enough mobile credit and remember the hotline to the Samaritans.

Further exaggeration as to how this book changed my life, without ever getting into the specifics. The characters. The plot. The words. The pages. These have reshaped the entire structure of my life and will sit deep inside my heart forever, until the next book comes along that does the same thing and offers me the same reaction and I write the same review but with different swooning self-important waffle that is really about ME and MY LIFE and not really about the book at all, and shows that these books are never really appreciated for their artistry, but for the way they appear to touch our lives and appeal to the feelings and emotions we think we have that make us good people, when we aren’t too busy going about the everyday business of gratifying ourselves and never demonstrating one tenth of this well-deep so-called love-of-the-world by being kind to a person we haven’t allowed into our private little bubble of pre-tested and pre-approved people.

Read this because I am more important than all of you. Now give me my 1,829 likes and I will ignore your comments except the ones that say how amazing I am.